The Brand Ambassador for Magnises (the totally legitimate and not a pyramid scheme service that allowed users to pay $250 dollars a month to slide their credit card into a larger credit card) once said on Fox Business, “When you marry the affluent with the less fortunate, you get…the birthchild…that is hip-hop”. At Ja Rule’s Fyre festival—where trapped millionaires wearing $2000 Gucci loafers can be seen beating each other over the head with toilet tanks for the grease left on empty pizza boxes—this philosophy appears to have been kept in mind: Fyre Festival is super Hip-Hop. When asked for comment, the rapper who once levied a diss track at Eminem’s infant daughter did his best to ease the minds of the attendees.

“Fyre Festival was an important event to everyone involved,” said Ja Rule from the top of a burning pile of Fyre Festival-branded merch. “We remain committed to providing a positive experience for all of our attendees. Please try to stay calm until rescue arrives. On the bright side, being stuck in your emergency shelter for days without real food or water is a great opportunity to check out my new tracks!”

Ja Rule then threw several copies of his EP into the crowd like frisbees, striking one attendee in the forehead.

“I really do feel terrible about what has happened,” Ja Rule told us. “We were looking forward to providing a positive experience for all the attendees here, and obviously that didn’t pan out. But you know, I’m excited to show off some of the new stuff I’ve been working on! It’s been a struggle getting back in the game, and it’s great to finally have some people to bounce ideas off of.”

When asked about the specific prospects of his future musical output, Ja Rule could only smile.

“I’m really looking forward to the creative collaboration that will come between me and those imprisoned here by the sea. Hopefully it’ll help mend some of the hurt feelings caused by being forced to sleep in tents and eat nothing but cheese for a few days. As I said in the promotion of Magnises–unlock your city today! Hip Hop is amazing, because it allows us to speak to the disenfranchised, and now I have disenfranchised thousands.”

None of the 7,000 attendees trapped on the island could be reached for comment.

This new upcoming season of Quidditch is gonna be a banger. Since their last game, they’ve just been going at it in the soccer fields. You know the type: the coolest kids in your Comp 2 class, always talking about how sore they are from practice. You’ve probably even seen their lanyards. Surprised that it’s Harry Potter? Why wouldn’t you be? I know people always talk about how Quidditch isn’t a real sport but I heard Greg in my class dispute this rumor. Greg and Dylan, the coveted seeker, were talking about how much work they’re missing out on because they have practice every night when this girl was like, “That’s not a real sport.” Being the Ravenclaw Greg is, he destroyed her using intellect and fact. She was totally dumbfounded. One day, I hope I get to be like Greg because he reminds me so much of Hermione, but I’m just a Hufflepuff who watches from the sidelines.

Watching them practice next to the soccer team, you can see just how dedicated they are to their sport. Sweating through their house sweatshirts, running around with that weird stick between their legs while trying to throw those balls into the hoops at the end of the field. There’s no other athlete who can do that kind of multitasking. In boring sports, they just do one thing with only one ball. In Quidditch, there’s gotta be at least three. Dylan has been perfecting the seeker position by doing extra practices and he’s finally starting to look like a great player. Not only is he a crazy good athlete, he’s crazy good-looking. Standing at a whopping 5’6” with shaggy brown hair that covers most of his face, he is so dreamy. His aroma is tantalizing, his AXE body spray makes everyone go wild—even the straight boys on the team. I mean, I would love to date him but there’s no way he would even look at me like that. I’m just a groupie—nowhere near his level or even his league.

Their first game since the terrifyingly upsetting loss against NYU is happening this weekend. NYU’s team was ripped; almost all of them were like close to six foot. They had exclusive merch that you can only get at Harry Potter World, so you know they’re good. Although that’s not really my type. I don’t go for the conventionally attractive type, you know? They’re not down to Earth like Dylan is. The NYU’s Hipster Horcruxes really did rip us a new one that day. So our team is hoping people come to show support—while they may not have three people in the crowd yet, like the basketball team has, hopefully some day they will. The game should be in the bag for them since they’re playing against Adelphi, the worst Quidditch team in the tri-state area. Adelphi’s team is like the opposite of the Hipster Horcruxes. So if you really want to show your school pride, don’t go to any of the games with free shirts.At this game, you’ll thrive on the atmosphere of excitement and all the Harry Potter references that they throw around. You’ll also be able to see all the hot members, but stay away from Dylan. Remember to head on out to the acid fields at 12:30 pm on Sunday! You won’t wanna miss it or the team!

It’s been a stressful season for the New York Islanders, the renowned hockey team known for playing hockey similarly to other teams. In a development which proved shocking to fans everywhere, moving the team and forcing them to play in the middle of a Brooklyn bar and concert venue — the Barclays Center — was not as positive an experience as everyone and anyone could have expected. This is not the end for Everyone’s Favorite Team When Every Other Sport is Off-Season, though. With rumors that the team could move to Queens, or possibly even the seventh circle of hell – Staten Island – fans across both Nassau and Suffolk counties aren’t holding their breath for positive news any time soon.

Up-and-coming businessman and my favorite blood-related uncle, Dominick A. Vito, might have just the answer, though. As it so happens, he came into a piece of property that is mere minutes from the Islanders’ old place, the Nassau Coliseum. And, according to sources close to the situation, the place is “friggin’ yuge.”

With amenities such as alcohol, my dad’s awesome jokes, semi-cold running water, and a pretty flat floor, what else could the team need for their new home? Uncle Dom even got that smell out of the carpet, so now it’s clean and fresh and ready for the blood of our least-skilled players, especially now that the other blood is gone. It just takes some seltzer; it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Have you met my uncle? If you have, you get it. He’s a hard-working man. I say that as a reporter, so now it’s a fact.

Angelo D. Vito, my dad and long-time bar-regular, gave a ringing endorsement of the establishment. “Little Dommy was never very good with the girls, but he’s got Miller on tap, so we all know who really came out on top.”

“Women!” continued the lone patron who is, just to reiterate, the father to a woman who is me. “Who needs em?”

Disgustingly, critics of my uncle’s plan have said that the team needs “a stadium”, and “seats” in their new home. Others, though, such as my uncle and his brother, see this as an example of Big Hockey trying to hurt the average fan.

“Remember back in the day when the average boy could go from playing in the streets to beating up the opposite team for millions of dollars a day? I want that shit in my bar,” said the younger of the Vito brothers, the one that’s my uncle. Objectively speaking, he makes a good point. Those days of opportunity – the opportunity for a young white man to break another man’s collarbone and be celebrated, rather than to be forcibly removed from the Roosevelt Field Mall – are over unless we support businessmen like my uncle, who have proven time and time again that they are the true lifeblood of Long Island.

“Luge? My wife told me to pick some up at CVS. She said it was like humping a dry carrot. A meaty, dry carrot, with those white flaky patches?” admitted stranger Todd Owen.

It seems that this sport has long been left undefined for the general populous, requiring us to fill in the details of a sport lain dormant in the dragon’s nest.

According to the National Olympic Newspaper for Sociological and Ecological Nutrition in Southern Europe (NONSENSE), luge can be defined as any sport that uses sleds and grease. The first ever recorded game of luge was played in 1483 at the dawn of English time when Richard the Third lubricated the track with the blood of his enemies. The luge-sled, known in French as the Grosse bite (translation: large cock), was a large and oily piece of wood. This game was organized to celebrate the inauguration of Pope John Paul IV, who won the electoral college by a landslide vote.

Today, luge is one of the most popular Winter Olympic Games. Players from all around Greenland and Canada’s Northwestern Provinces unite under a single steamy dome to participate in what has internationally become known as “The Lord’s Tournament,” gliding players into the hearts of man for 30 slippery seconds at a time while they evade death by mere millimeters.

The track is the most important element in the event of luge. In Italy, the luge tracks are greased with freshly-pressed oil of the olive plant. In Thailand, coconut oil is used. In the United States, they prefer raw unrefined pig fat, also known as “hitting that shit raw.” Some Olympic qualification tournaments have been known to use KY Intense Pussy Burn Jelly for Her, as well as actual strawberry jelly; the two products are largely interchangeable. As for the sled, most Olympians choose to use discarded Macbook Pros; here at Hofstra University, our team uses trays stolen from brittle old men visiting the Student Center who can’t carry their own food. Their tears lubricate our newly-erected Joseph J. Shapiro Family Steam Dome.

This game is known as the second most dangerous sport in the Olympics, preceded only by Spicy Fencing (Supreme Edition). Mothers have wept sweet rose-scented tears at the edges of thousands of luge-tracks. And with good reason! Partakers of luge are a rare breed indeed; even the losers of such an arduous and life-changing sport must themselves be built by champions, forged in the flame, and cold as ice. To learn more, we asked internationally known lugerino Anita Nuthername to tell us a little about this fateful game of death and how one finds “success” at it.

“Yeah, it’s really all in the buttcheeks,” said Nuthername, clenching hers tightly so that a squeaking noise could be heard through the entire luge practice complex, in turn inspiring her teammates to do more luge. “You just gotta squeeze ‘em real tight. That’s how Richard the Third would have wanted it.”

When asked how long Nuthername had been practicing the luge lifestyle, she answered, “Since the day I was fucking born. When my mother, God rest her tender soul, squeezed her very own luge-ly buttcheeks and birthed me out, I was set forth onto my sled and into the track. The afterbirth followed suit.” Following this exchange, Nuthername paused briefly. “I miss my cheeky Mama,” she whispered to me, her glutes still squealing. Tears began to well in her eyes and, for the first time that day, it seemed as though she had more on her mind than just indentured swervitude. “But I just wish she would have explained to me what the fuck luge is.”

With every year comes new releases from the hottest artists, and perhaps ancient diseases frozen for millions of years under the humongous island of Greenland. Last year, Drake brought us Views, Beyoncé gave us Lemonade, Chance, the Rapper gave us Coloring Book, and Greenland gave us no cataclysmic diseases. Let’s dive right into the hottest albums that will be dropped this year!

1. Lorde – Melodrama – Jun 16, 2017

Since the young New Zealand pop-star’s 2013 debut album, Pure Heroine, people have been blasting her catchy tunes at ironic tea parties and white college clubs. The album even garnered a cover from T-Pain’s hype-man while T-Pain got paid $30,000 to sit and drink bottled water at Hofstra’s very own Music Fest. Lorde has been showing some serious potential for this new album with the release of some new singles, even if they are not as catchy as “Royals.” Global warming is also showing some serious potential in melting Greenland just enough that those world-ending diseases frozen in there may escape. Let’s hope we all die after we jam out to Lorde!

2. Spoon – Hot Thoughts – March 17, 2017

Everyone knows that one Spoon song, “Underdog,” so everyone definitely wants another full album of music from them in 2017! The band may be older, but that does not mean they cannot keep up with the young Alternative bands of today. Also on the older side (by several hundreds of thousands of years) are those diseases under the largely Inuit populated island of Greenland that are definitely going to thaw.

3. Gorillaz – TBD

This cartoon-turned-real person band has been MIA since 2012; nobody thought they were coming back, but here they are! Expect even more Snoop Dogg and more features than ever before. There is sure to be no lack of their wacky music videos either. There is also no doubt in my mind that the frozen diseases under Greenland, once thawed, are capable of wiping out 99% of the population within one year. Being frozen for so long has given them a high resistance to antibiotics and the ability to transform fast. Be sure to groove to some Gorillaz as you slowly watch your family cough blood on each other!

4. Fleet Foxes – Crack Up – June 16, 2017

We just had to include another animal-based band in this list; they just seem so plentiful these days! Fleet Foxes left their fans in the dust after their 2011 album Helplessness Blues. People thought they all died, but here they are again. They’re also gonna bring the original Seattle Folk style that fans have worshipped since their hiatus. After this album, they all will almost definitely die terribly painful deaths from those diseases under the (ironically-named) Greenland. Be sure to listen to Crack Up as you contemplate all those diseases thawing and inevitably killing you.

5. Sky Ferreira – Masochism – TBD

This might be the year of the Indie-Pop Revolution! Sky Ferreira is a fierce and edgy pop musician who always does her own thing. Her album should once again bring her angsty and edgy vibes that her fans just adore. Her porcelain-white skin will make it very difficult for doctors to notice when she has been infected by the diseases that are going to take her life sometime soon. However, it will be easy to tell when she starts coughing up the blood we are all bound to cough up eventually.

6. Trey Songz – Tremaine – TBD

Trey Songz comes out of the blue right when the world needs him. No one’s ever said “I hate Trey Songz” because everyone just sorta likes him. Maybe 2017 will be his comeback year, or maybe it will just be the year he coughs and/or cries tears, killing himself and spreading the frozen (soon to be unfrozen) Greenland diseases to others.

7. Some Country Music – Who Cares

These songs will come out in the summer, and I would not even give us until then to live. The diseases pent up in their frozen prison made-up of the largest non-continent island, Greenland, are itching to get their dirty hands on some animals, then humans. We will die before we hear the hottest country song of the year and there is no way around that.

2017 is sure to be a year full of new music, new experiences, and new diseases! These hot albums are sure to blow up the airways and the charts in the coming months, so be sure to start pre-ordering your copies. Also, be sure to watch out for those diseases! You may not be able to stop the apocalypse caused by them, but maybe you will be one of the 1% who is immune. Happy listening!

I’ve seen the worst of it. Got a bad case of rug burn from one of them Velcro casings a while back during the Siege of Vander Poel. I owe my life thrice-fold to Ol’ Doc Stitches for patching up my flaky meat-wrapper…on more than one occasion. I’ve got a scar in the shape of my cousin Doyle’s fake leg on my lower back.

The point is, Chris, I know my shit, and you totally could not have hit me from all the way back there. The only blaster with that kind of range is a Longshot™ and that’s before you even take into account the wind, my amazing reflexes, or the Coriolis effect. The report back from intel states that our opposition doesn’t carry that kind of armament, and even if they did have access to that class of hardware – I told you I didn’t feel it hit me, you tool!

Listen, greenhorn, when I joined up with The Triple B (Bloody Blaster Battalion) I had no idea. First day in basic they made me disassemble a pair of Nerf Doomlands 2169 Negotiators™, using just a couple of moldy darts like chopsticks. Sarge spat in my mouth when I said I didn’t know that zombies were the resident bad boyz. He spat right into my open mouth. But I grew to love the taste and subtle pulpy texture of his residual oat-based knowledge nectar. I was like a baby bird, gleaming scraps of blaster discipline from Sarge’s salivary surprise. I know my shit, ya little Krumph.

I don’t care that you think you shot me. Look at me, cadet. Take a deep whiff of me with your sight sponges. Do you see that I’m more greased up than a baking sheet full of Crisco? I’m caked in the goddamned stuff. The purpose of this is two-fold:

I think my salamander has really started respecting me more since I became such a slick muchacho.

The bullets fucking glide off you, Chris.

Chris, do you even give a shit about accuracy in this realistic dart-based war simulation? Because, judging by your utter lack of grease, mud, or any sort of dart-proof lube, I’d wager that you didn’t even account for non-Newtonian drag. Oh no? You didn’t, huh? What a surprise that “Big Piss” Chris here doesn’t even know about muzzle drop OR in flight trajectories once that dart is out of the muzzle.

My ears are attuned, you wempled duck brain of a boy. I can hear a dart whizzing by like the honks of a legion of Canada Geese flying overhead and raining white hot salvation upon the war-grounds. I’ve got the reflexes of a little league baseballer on two Redbulls and a couple bumps of those sweet sweet… battle salts.

Here’s the deal, Chris: I’ll play the game with you, but I don’t have to… did you… did you just shoot me? Point blank? No way, I called a time-out earlier. This shit doesn’t count. I won’t be toppled, let alone degreased, by an outsider. Don’t make me. I HATE this game.

Hidden Fences has become one of the most #woke movies of the past decade. Honestly guys, I’m #shook. After I watched it, I felt the warmth of Martin Luther King Jr. as my third eye opened. It’s so woke guys. Like Malcolm-X-became-my-spiritual-guide woke, but like only when he said violence was bad. Like I went home and ghost wrote seven Buzzfeed articles about this movie woke. Ever since #OscarsSoWhite, writers, producers, and Hollywood actors have taken enormous strides to ensure that their audience not only receives more diverse stories, but that said stories are treated with the respect and admiration that they deserve.

I stumbled upon this movie by wandering through my local refurbished neighborhood, hoping to find some cool new place to pretend I discovered. I came across this new alternative movie theater. At first they were hesitant to let me in, so obviously I climbed in through the window and claimed the land as my own. This hidden gem has the appearance of apartment, featuring a small kitchen with a moderately stocked fridge and some family photos. Their patrons feel more at home by providing old couches to sit on, and instead of a screen, there is a small television. The owner of the theater was super nice, and offered to bring me jewelry and money. The youngest of the customers began to sob obnoxiously. The environment was clearly designed to force visitors to make bonds with the other audience members, forcing millennials to take a break from the phones and connect on a deeper level. I normally give local spaces 5 out of 5 stars, but the broken glass and crying children kind of killed the vibe and ruined my experience. 😦

Hidden Fences is the crime story, similar to the likes of the 2015 Oscars, 2017 Grammys, or that blackface Othello movie. Stanley, played by Denzel Washington, is framed for a crime he did not commit. He is sent to a detention center called ‘Camp Green Lake’, where he and the other inmates are forced to dig numerous holes in the desert every day. As Stanley comes to terms with his life, he uncovers the mystery of the holes and makes some friends along the way. The film has an incredible star studded cast, including Octavia Spencer, playing the mysterious and captivating Madame Zeroni, and Taraji P. Henson as the Warden. These actors’ names are just pronounceable enough so you’ll feel cultured when you remember them, and you won’t feel racist if you can’t get them right. There hasn’t been a story so captivating since Hamilton. I would know, I’ve seen it live, and I’ve memorized all the raps.

Inspired by true events, and directed by Tyler Perry, this movie had will have you whipping and nae nae-ing on the edge of your seat. This movie is so bad and bougie that your ‘boxer braids’ will look even more fleek than they did when you entered the trap house. On a scale of ‘My African American friend over there’ to ‘Living the Life of Pablo’, watching this movie will totally get your one black friend to give you ‘the pass.’ Do👏🏻not👏🏻watch👏🏻unless👏🏻you👏🏻are👏🏻ready👏🏻to👏🏻be👏🏻woke👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

HEMPSTEAD, NY – Week after week, students walk their little legs through Hofstra University’s Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center. At the end of its red brick atrium, there is a beacon: HOFCAST, or, if you don’t know, that tiny little television mounted above the entrance to the Unispan. On that tiny little television, Hofstra University projects poorly made PowerPoint slides to remind students of events they will never attend. It is on this tiny little baby television that every week, Hofstra students lay eyes upon the announcements for guest lectures by Jet Tila, or Thai-re Food Tuesday, and… what’s this? – can you guess it? no? – yet another basketball game. Another basketball game that stands to remind us all that, yes, despite all odds: Hofstra basketball.

It prevails.

From inside the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Center, I can hear the ticking of a clock across the room and the screeching of basketball shoes across the floor. In the stands, there are bodies with mouths open, the scattered pockets of friends and Tinder matches standing in awe, in awe of the Hofstra Basketball. Oh, yes! Oh, yes! They are doing it: The Basketball. Who would have thought? Look! They run up and down the court. How brave! They throw the ball and make the swish. They ziggity zaggity, juke, jive, volleyball, basketball, cricket tall, lemon small between players. Wow! They smack the ball, YES, smack it, out of hands and into their own, and whoosh it to the other side of the court. They are doing it! They are fearless and strong, heroes to us all! Good for them! Despite all odds! Despite calf muscles long-since atrophied! Despite opening for each game’s headliner, Free T-Shirts. Despite…everything.

It triumphs.

Hofstra Basketball has been developing little sweat drops, little sweat drops upon its head since Your Honor, High Lord, King Queen, President Stuart Rabinowitz dissolved the football team into itty bitty pieces after having gone 0-23. Hofstra Basketball, it fills the void with aplomb! It has enough school spirit for the entire university. Hofstra Basketball goes. Goes each week, so we do not have to. With clammy hands and flames in their fast heart rates, Hofstra Basketball has continued to prove, week after week, that it will be the victorious team on campus. Who is this Quidditch? What is this Wrestle? None but Hofstra Basketball.

An excavation from our recently discovered joke bone yard: “Nonsense’s Guide to Travel!” A pamphlet available physically and digitally.

The sound of a whistle is heard, piercing through the uproarious cheer of the audience.

“Travel!” yells a man in an expensive tracksuit. The colors don’t matter to me; they never have. Every day is the same for me, my face smashing against the glazed floor with the smell of sweat being pushed deeper into my damp, porous nose. Though if there’s anything I can take solace in, it’s the sensation I get when I’m up in the air, flying, towards the net. If I could do that for the rest of my life then maybe, just maybe, I would feel fulfilled.

I think I’ve spent enough of my life on these hardwood floors and sure, the thrill of soaring above everyone else is really something quite magical, but it just isn’t enough; it’s just so short-lived. I can’t help but feel like I’m really missing out on an important part of my life here and yeah, lengthy, meaty, girthy fingers brushing against my curves feel nice, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that. Not like this.

After a brief pause, I am launched back into play, and I make my way from one end of the court to another, actions over which I have very little control. Then again, I have very little control over my life at this point. I’m my happiest when I’ve got my head in the clouds like this. I’m just freefalling until the dream is crushed once I am patted on the back by more greasy hands leaving imprints on my already moist jersey.

I wonder how planes do it. I mean, they’re much heavier than I am, so how do they get to fly? I can get some sick air, yes, but flying is definitely something I want to try. I want to touch the sky. It can’t be too difficult to purchase tickets and I don’t even care where I have to go – I just want to fly like some avian creature and stay where my heart belongs.

“Travel? Am I working with amateurs here? Kidding, son, it was just a little humor. Seriously, though, no travelling; you’re better than that.”

“Just a smidge of humor to start your day off, son. heh heh…”

Travel. Why don’t I? What’s stopping me from taking off right here and right now? The Tracksuit Man holds no power over me. None that I don’t give him. What is preventing me from achieving that permanent lift-off I’ve always dreamt of? The more I ponder, the more I realize that nothing is stopping me. I can be all the way up. You want travel, old guy? I’ll give you travel.

Mustering every last bit of strength I have left, I begin to levitate,

Levitate

Levitate.

I fly past those testosterone-laden beasts and into the sky. My journey is now and I am reborn.

I don’t really fly into the sky because I’m not a moron and I understand that ceilings exist but I fly high enough (what, did you expect me to measure how high? Fuck you.) and dip down to escape through the door and into the big, beautiful world that awaits me. Travelling was always taboo for my kind, especially after what had happened to my cousin back in the year 2000. I ignore all that, though, and decide to chase my dreams. I never got to go backpacking in Europe so here was my chance. If someone could just bounce me super hard, I know I could make it across the Atlantic Ocean and into Derbyshire (United Kingdom) in no time!

I roll my way onto the highway first so I can get to the mall and find myself a good backpack. Fuck, I don’t even know what I’d put in the backpack, but if I don’t have a backpack then I don’t backpack Europe and I don’t get to live my dream. I can already tell within an hour of being in the great outdoors that the air in the world is so much fresher and cleaner than that salty semen stench that parades around the oxygen being carried into my lungs. I get to the mall and roll everywhere, not finding any kind of backpack that I could even pretend would work on me. That’s when I remember, silly Edmund, you don’t even have arms! I then mockingly slap myself on the forehead for being such a dunce, except I don’t really do that because I don’t have any fucking arms.

Suddenly, some goober picks me up and starts smashing my handsome face onto the hard, flat surface below me. Years of agony flood back into my head as I remember all the horrible things that have been done to me that I will not specify. Some blonde broad tells the kid to put me back, and so he carries me over to the nearest sporting goods store and stashes me away into a crate full of my brethren.

This doesn’t feel right though…nobody is talking. I realize now that I am amidst a sea of corpses that were once people I had ignored at family barbeques. There’s Uncle Spalding and my cousin Spalding Jr. and even…no…it can’t be…my eight-hundred-and-ninety-seventh cousin twelve hundred times removed.

I will not let their deaths go unanswered for. I push past the corpses of my loved ones and shoot through the sky with nothing more propelling me than my own eternal rage.

Of course, there is still a ceiling, a glass ceiling, and I shatter it with my rotund might. I jettison towards Europe – at least, where Europe probably is. I can’t really hold a compass.

Splitting clouds as I make my marvelous journey, I feel alive once more. But then all of a sudden, a large pelican fucks my tiny hole, effectively deflating me and forcing me to plummet to my blue, liquid grave down below. The salt is just awful for my skin and the sun isn’t much help either. I have entire colonies of bacteria living in my entrails. My body is now a home to hundreds of different species and it is hell. Eventually, I wash up on what feels like a sandy surface.

No. No no no no no. This is exactly what happened to my cousin.

The silhouette of a man grows larger as he approaches my rigid body. I am paralyzed in fear and weep salty ocean tears upon realizing this man looks hauntingly similar to Tom Hanks. Just as I have feared, the man smears blood on my face and I know now that I will be his slave for the rest of my life.

I should have listened to the stories. I just should have listened. I should have never traveled.

“Bridges. Clay Bridges,” I told the suave doctor. What a mistake that was. I should have known better to interrupt the good doctor. Worse yet, who was I to question the authority and intelligence of the world-famous Dr. RJ Shafty (MD)?

He chuckled innocently before tilting his glasses down and looking me dead in the eyes.

“Now, now, Mr. Bridges, you and I both know how this works and you really should wait for me to tell you what your name is.”

He was right. Here I was, foolishly salivating at the sight of the outline of his skin-covered scimitar and I couldn’t even give the man the respect he deserves.

“The results are in,” he stated, staring at the crisp, white sheets in front of him. With the rays of sunlight striking them just right from the crack in the curtains, I vaguely made out various pictures of Rodney Dangerfield, but what did I know? I’m not a doctor.

“As it so turns out, Mr. Bridges, you are not Michael Phelps.”

At this point, I spat out all the saliva I was collecting in my mouth onto the rich mahogany desk in front of me. Dr. Shafty didn’t even bat an eye but that was to be expected; after all, he’s a doctor and I bet he deals with saliva pretty often. Already, the memories I’ve had of swimming the English Channel for my daily routine began to fade. I wanted to say something, to object, to question him. I knew I was in no place to question a surgeon of his class (that’s the highest class, for the viewing audience).

“Bu-I…are…” I was frantic. I slipped out of the chair and fell onto the floor like some sort of slippery reptile and inched my body closer and closer to one of several mirrors Dr. Shafty rightfully owned. I picked my head up and used my teeth to try to adjust the only mirror that was touching the ground. Being that I am an idiot and not a doctor, the mirror fell on top of me, shattering into large, reflective shards. I winced and cried aloud in pain but stopped acting like a complete basket case when I saw the blood pooling around my waist. I turned back to the doctor as a child would to a parent after being recently betrayed.

“Is this not the blood of an Olympian? Is this not the very essence of life that flows through the veins of the God of Chlorine?” I had to ask. My willpower was simply not strong enough to withstand the invincible urge to question the credibility of a licensed medical practitioner.

“You are no better than Lochte himself. Do not dare to compare yourself to the Webbed-footed Prince of the Seas,” Dr. Shafty barked at me, kicking me in the bridge of my nose. This pain felt comforting and warm.

“Look, all I can offer are some brochures on how to continue having sex with your wife after this…mess. All I can say is good luck. It’s not every day that someone comes here to discover that they are not Michael Phelps. I can’t say I can empathize, because I would be lying. After all, I have all twenty-three of my gold medals in my colon right now. Now, please get the hell out of my office. You won’t be needing a follow-up so you’re free to go. Don’t forget to congratulate my secretary, Michael Phelps, on the way out.”

The words became increasingly muffled as they were spoken and I could feel my body get weaker and less aroused by water. All those birthdays spent trying to blow candles out in the water only to sob at the fact that they weren’t even lit to begin with became more difficult to remember. My skin was dry and leathery and it became nearly impossible to slither out of the door.

Sighing, Dr. Shafty opened the largest drawer on his desk and pulled out a glass vial of what could only be described as lubricant and walked over to me, pouring every last drop into my eyes.

I felt the life drain from my feet and after several hours of blissful oblivion, I began to awake to the voice of my wife.

I watched the love and passion drain from her suede, brown eyes and kind of weird looking pointy face. She grew silent and cold, to the point where her cells physically began to harden as the molecules of her body moved less and less. She was now ice. I understood she could no longer love me. My daughter ran in, accidentally shattering the ice sculpture that was once her mother but paying her no mind. Don’t blame her; she’s too young to understand.

“Dad! I’m so glad you’re okay. This means you still get to come to show-and-tell tomorrow, right? I can’t wait to help you endorse Subway!”

“Sweetheart, I…” I didn’t have the nerve to tell her. I laid there, crying out every last droplet of water that remained in this pathetic body of mine. I mustered every last bit of strength I had to pick up the mirror that conveniently sat beside me. Looking into the reflective surface of the gadget, I gazed into the eyes of disappointment and looked upon the face of a man who had nothing left to live for. I stared and stared and only the stranger, Ryan Lochte, stared back at me. Whoever this man was, he certainly was not Michael Phelps. As my body faded into the bed sheets, only a silver medal marked “First Loser, Ryan Lochte” was left behind.